City scope: driven to abstraction

An online advertisement for car manufacturer Volvo featuring Swedish football superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic became an overnight sensation when it was released in late January, racking up millions of hits on YouTube. In the video, part of the carmaker's "Made in Sweden" campaign, Ibrahimovic is seen in the far north of the country, hunting, diving into icy water and showing off his tattooed torso - all with a reworked version of the Swedish national anthem playing in the background.

But what looks like a Swedish dream is, in reality, a Chinese nightmare, says activist group Supporting Human Rights in China (SHRC). Since China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group bought Volvo, in 2010, what was once a symbol of the country's engineering might has become Swedish in appearance only.

The activists, based in Uppsala, a university town just north of Stockholm, have made a spoof video of the original ad, showing where Volvo's money really ends up.

"Doing business with this regime of terror is to support abuse, torture and persecution," the group writes. "It is shameful wanting to associate your brand with the Chinese regime. It was shameful of Volvo to sell out a Swedish brand to them, and it is even more shameful to now give the appearance of Swedishness and Swedish values."

In the spoof video, a "Falun Gong member" is seen being tortured while tied to a hori-zontal bar in a scene resembling one in the original that shows Ibrahimovic doing pull-ups (left). In another parallel scene, a Tibetan monk is shot in a snow-covered field.

The last sentence of the national anthem: "I want to live, I want to die in the North", has been changed to: "I do not want to die, I want to live in freedom."